Hi Honey! I'm Going To Have Sex With Other Women.
Confuzor
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2412Awaiting Authorization
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2412Awaiting Authorization
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Cause Science pardoned my actions!</div> I couldn't help but remember this oldie quote from the off-topic forums after having read this article.
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Aug 23 2003, 09:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Aug 23 2003, 09:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Vyvn+Aug 23 2003, 05:26 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Vyvn @ Aug 23 2003, 05:26 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In health (sex ed) class, we did this thing where the boys and the girls each made lists of the things that were most attractive in the opposite sex. And surprisingly, a guy being rich was really low on the list. The most important thing was...bah, I forget. I think it was something stupid like a "nice smile." And no pasty white boys, either, doh.
I suppose being loaded could help in certain cases, though.. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Welcome to 'pretend school land'. Check any source you want - grown women want security more than anything else. In the modern civilized world, security equals money. A girl in highschool is already secure - her parents pay for everything. So she has time to like things like looks or sense of humor. This will be short-lived, trust me. Not all women eventually become obsessed with security and cash, but it's for sure the vast majority. Give it 5 or 6 years, you will find out. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once again, I found this article on my newspaper during the summer, but I've managed to find the link for it this time:
<a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10691-2003Jul31?language=printer' target='_blank'>Is a man's sexual appetite naturally or culturally inculcated?</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Desire and DNA: Is Promiscuity Innate?
New Study Sharpens Debate on Men, Sex and Gender Roles
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2003; Page A01
A fierce debate about whether jealousy, lust and sexual attraction are hardwired in the brain or are the products of culture and upbringing has recently been ignited by the growing influence of a school of psychology that sees the hidden hand of evolution in everyday life.
Fresh sparks flew last month when a study of more than 16,000 people from every inhabited continent found that men everywhere -- whether single, married or **** -- want more sexual partners than women do.
"This study provides the largest and most comprehensive test yet conducted on whether the sexes differ in the desire for sexual variety," wrote lead researcher David P. Schmitt, an evolutionary psychologist at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. "The results are strong and conclusive -- the sexes differ, and these differences appear to be universal."
The idea that male promiscuity is hardwired -- and therefore "normal" -- drew swift and furious criticism. Scholars who assert the primacy of culture in shaping human behavior charged Schmitt with choosing his facts, making his conclusions less about science than "wishful thinking."
The debate won't be settled soon, if ever. For the real arguments are about social mores, gender roles and sexual politics. The real question isn't about evolution, but society's view of appropriate behavior for men and women.
Ohio State University psychologist Terri Fisher said she knows the new study will be misused. Each year, when she teaches her college students about the research into sexual variety, the young men smile and nod and the young women look appalled.
"I bet a lot of males might leave class and talk to their girlfriends and say, 'You know what I learned in class? It's natural I don't want to commit to you and that I feel attracted to other women -- it's because I am a man,' " Fisher said.
The basic idea of evolutionary psychology is that human behavior -- like human physical features -- is the product of evolution. Unlike with bones and tissue, however, there is no fossil record of behavior, so psychologists draw inferences from current behavior as to why people developed certain ways of acting.
There is little controversy that evolution played some role in sculpting behavior. Neuroscientists have studied emotions such as fear and found that many species freeze when panicked, meaning that this is probably an evolved behavior. But when evolutionary psychologists use the same argument about complex behaviors such as sexual attraction, the debate becomes heated.
For if men and women naturally have different desires for sexual variety, this easily becomes a justification of male promiscuity. Sociologists and social psychologists assert that differences in sexual proclivity arise because of a double standard in male-dominated societies, where female sexuality is tightly controlled: Thus, a man with multiple partners is a "stud" while a woman with multiple partners is a "slut."
Using genetics to bolster such beliefs, these critics say, gives gender inequality the imprimatur of biology.
"Arguments about evolved dispositions have the implication of defending the status quo," said Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. "They have implications for power and status."
Schmitt's study, which was published in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, involved 16,288 volunteers from 50 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as Australia. Asked how many partners they desired over the next month, men on average said 1.87, while women said 0.78. Men said that over the next 10 years they wanted 5.95 partners, while women said they wanted 2.17.
More than a quarter of heterosexual men wanted more than one partner in the next month, as did 29.1 percent of **** men and 30.1 percent of bisexual men, the study said. Just 4.4 percent of heterosexual women, 5.5 percent of lesbians and 15.6 percent of bisexual women sought more than one partner.
Men were also more willing to enter into sexual relationships with partners they had known for short periods of time, said Schmitt in an interview.
"It is the first systematic, massive, scientific study of these sex differences," said David M. Buss, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin who wrote "The Evolution of Desire." Calling the Schmitt paper definitive, Buss said, "The evidence he presents is irrefutable."
Schmitt thinks the roots of the differences his study found lie in ancient hunter-gatherer societies. Men who sought sexual variety had a greater chance of passing on their genes -- and their promiscuous proclivities. Women who kept their mates improved the chances of raising children and were more likely to pass on their genes -- and their monogamous proclivities.
Many evolutionary psychologists say these divergent sexual strategies also explain two corollary findings of modern studies. One says men seem more disturbed by sexual infidelity and women seem more disturbed by emotional infidelity. The other says heterosexual men seek women who are young and beautiful because these are viewed as signs of fertility, while heterosexual women seek men who are rich because that helps in raising children.
Schmitt and Buss said that the findings help account for the fact that men are more interested in pornography, more likely to flirt with strangers and more likely to stray as spouses.
But social psychologists and even some evolutionary psychologists aren't convinced. They say Schmitt's study is impressive, but his findings are far from universal. And they challenge every one of Schmitt's and Buss's assumptions and conclusions.
Because of society's double standard, Fisher said, women are hesitant to report their true sexual desires. In one study, she asked men and women to report whether they masturbated, watched soft-core pornography or hard-core pornography. Each "yes" got a point. She found, on average, that men scored 2.32 and women 0.89.
But she also found that women's scores changed depending on how confident they were of remaining anonymous. In the study, both men and women had been told to hand their questionnaires to a researcher. But when women were told to deposit their answers in a locked box supervised by a researcher, their average score jumped to 1.53. And when the women took the test alone in a locked room and then deposited their answers in a locked box -- ensuring privacy and anonymity -- their score shot up further, to 2.04. The men's answers did not change significantly, indicating they were less concerned about their opinions being discovered.
In Schmitt's international study, students answering the survey sat together in classrooms, filled out the questionnaires and deposited them in a locked box. Some were asked to mail in their responses.
Fisher, who works at OSU's Mansfield campus, also found that when anonymity was guaranteed, women reported having sex for the first time at a younger age. Men guaranteed anonymity raised the age when they first had sex.
"No parent in any culture ever tells a daughter, 'By all means, go have sex,' " said Pamela Regan, an evolutionary psychologist at California State University in Los Angeles who disagrees with Schmitt and Buss. By contrast, she said, "many expect their sons to 'be men,' which implies sexual experience."
Eagly and Regan argue that men's and women's sexual choices and desires grow more similar in societies with greater gender equality -- a contention supported by Schmitt's own data.
Regan added that other evolutionary theories are just as plausible as the male promiscuity argument: Men in hunter-gatherer societies who stuck with a single mate and helped raise children might have been more genetically successful -- because passing on genes means not just having children but ensuring they survive long enough to reproduce in turn.
Other research has contradicted the finding that heterosexual men mainly seek young, beautiful women, while heterosexual women are most drawn to rich men. Last month, Stephen T. Emlen, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University, reported in a study that people basically want partners with qualities they attribute to themselves. Contrary to stereotypes about wealthy Mr. Rights and beautiful Ms. Wonderfuls, he said, attractive people tend to value attractiveness, wealthy people value mates with money, and ambitious types and family-oriented souls tend to gravitate to others like themselves.
The desire for similar mates, Emlen found, was five to six times more powerful than the desire for beautiful or wealthy partners. Emlen's study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And David DeSteno, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston, took aim at the other corollary of the evolutionary psychologists' theory: that men fear sexual infidelity while women fear emotional infidelity. Under test conditions designed to elicit gut responses, both men and women reported that sexual infidelity would bother them more, said DeSteno, whose work was published last year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
If there's one thing almost everyone agrees on, it is that genes do not decide what people ultimately do.
Indeed, the interests of individuals often conflict with the interests of their genes -- and the strongest evidence for this is that in most industrialized societies, birth rates are falling. People are choosing not to have children, or to adopt, or to enter into **** relationships -- all antithetical to the idea of passing on genes.
"I have heard people say, 'I can't help it, I am a man -- I have to spill my seed,' " said Regan. "That's using science to justify your bad behavior.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
After reading the article, I just had to think, "Wow." There was some very good points brought up from both sides, and I'd have a really hard time making a decision. But being blessed by my personal bias, this decision is easy to make!
I have seen the Discovery channel agree with the statement that the above statistic implies. In the show, it suggested men wanted more partners to ensure that at least some of their offspring would be able to survive, and indeed many animals seem to use this tactic. But as the article above states, a male can be equally successful in ensuring the continuation of his offspring by caring for his children, and some animals also use this tactic as well. The classic struggle between quantity vs. quality <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> .
With women... well the article doesn't seem to state a "scientific hypothesis" as to why women would want more partners. Personally, I don't think that there really is a scientific generalization why women would want more partners or less, though my assumption is that women do in fact want one partner so they don't end up becoming a single parent. This assumption only applies to women consummating for the purpose of having children, though. Women having sex not for the purpose of having children, well, assuming that their morality disregards monogamy, they wouldn't care about how many partners they had now, would they? The only thing they'd want to make sure is that they don't get pregnant. No responsibility? Good. The fun continues...
Let's see what you folks have to say...
<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Aug 23 2003, 09:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Aug 23 2003, 09:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Vyvn+Aug 23 2003, 05:26 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Vyvn @ Aug 23 2003, 05:26 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In health (sex ed) class, we did this thing where the boys and the girls each made lists of the things that were most attractive in the opposite sex. And surprisingly, a guy being rich was really low on the list. The most important thing was...bah, I forget. I think it was something stupid like a "nice smile." And no pasty white boys, either, doh.
I suppose being loaded could help in certain cases, though.. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Welcome to 'pretend school land'. Check any source you want - grown women want security more than anything else. In the modern civilized world, security equals money. A girl in highschool is already secure - her parents pay for everything. So she has time to like things like looks or sense of humor. This will be short-lived, trust me. Not all women eventually become obsessed with security and cash, but it's for sure the vast majority. Give it 5 or 6 years, you will find out. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once again, I found this article on my newspaper during the summer, but I've managed to find the link for it this time:
<a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10691-2003Jul31?language=printer' target='_blank'>Is a man's sexual appetite naturally or culturally inculcated?</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Desire and DNA: Is Promiscuity Innate?
New Study Sharpens Debate on Men, Sex and Gender Roles
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2003; Page A01
A fierce debate about whether jealousy, lust and sexual attraction are hardwired in the brain or are the products of culture and upbringing has recently been ignited by the growing influence of a school of psychology that sees the hidden hand of evolution in everyday life.
Fresh sparks flew last month when a study of more than 16,000 people from every inhabited continent found that men everywhere -- whether single, married or **** -- want more sexual partners than women do.
"This study provides the largest and most comprehensive test yet conducted on whether the sexes differ in the desire for sexual variety," wrote lead researcher David P. Schmitt, an evolutionary psychologist at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. "The results are strong and conclusive -- the sexes differ, and these differences appear to be universal."
The idea that male promiscuity is hardwired -- and therefore "normal" -- drew swift and furious criticism. Scholars who assert the primacy of culture in shaping human behavior charged Schmitt with choosing his facts, making his conclusions less about science than "wishful thinking."
The debate won't be settled soon, if ever. For the real arguments are about social mores, gender roles and sexual politics. The real question isn't about evolution, but society's view of appropriate behavior for men and women.
Ohio State University psychologist Terri Fisher said she knows the new study will be misused. Each year, when she teaches her college students about the research into sexual variety, the young men smile and nod and the young women look appalled.
"I bet a lot of males might leave class and talk to their girlfriends and say, 'You know what I learned in class? It's natural I don't want to commit to you and that I feel attracted to other women -- it's because I am a man,' " Fisher said.
The basic idea of evolutionary psychology is that human behavior -- like human physical features -- is the product of evolution. Unlike with bones and tissue, however, there is no fossil record of behavior, so psychologists draw inferences from current behavior as to why people developed certain ways of acting.
There is little controversy that evolution played some role in sculpting behavior. Neuroscientists have studied emotions such as fear and found that many species freeze when panicked, meaning that this is probably an evolved behavior. But when evolutionary psychologists use the same argument about complex behaviors such as sexual attraction, the debate becomes heated.
For if men and women naturally have different desires for sexual variety, this easily becomes a justification of male promiscuity. Sociologists and social psychologists assert that differences in sexual proclivity arise because of a double standard in male-dominated societies, where female sexuality is tightly controlled: Thus, a man with multiple partners is a "stud" while a woman with multiple partners is a "slut."
Using genetics to bolster such beliefs, these critics say, gives gender inequality the imprimatur of biology.
"Arguments about evolved dispositions have the implication of defending the status quo," said Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. "They have implications for power and status."
Schmitt's study, which was published in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, involved 16,288 volunteers from 50 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as Australia. Asked how many partners they desired over the next month, men on average said 1.87, while women said 0.78. Men said that over the next 10 years they wanted 5.95 partners, while women said they wanted 2.17.
More than a quarter of heterosexual men wanted more than one partner in the next month, as did 29.1 percent of **** men and 30.1 percent of bisexual men, the study said. Just 4.4 percent of heterosexual women, 5.5 percent of lesbians and 15.6 percent of bisexual women sought more than one partner.
Men were also more willing to enter into sexual relationships with partners they had known for short periods of time, said Schmitt in an interview.
"It is the first systematic, massive, scientific study of these sex differences," said David M. Buss, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin who wrote "The Evolution of Desire." Calling the Schmitt paper definitive, Buss said, "The evidence he presents is irrefutable."
Schmitt thinks the roots of the differences his study found lie in ancient hunter-gatherer societies. Men who sought sexual variety had a greater chance of passing on their genes -- and their promiscuous proclivities. Women who kept their mates improved the chances of raising children and were more likely to pass on their genes -- and their monogamous proclivities.
Many evolutionary psychologists say these divergent sexual strategies also explain two corollary findings of modern studies. One says men seem more disturbed by sexual infidelity and women seem more disturbed by emotional infidelity. The other says heterosexual men seek women who are young and beautiful because these are viewed as signs of fertility, while heterosexual women seek men who are rich because that helps in raising children.
Schmitt and Buss said that the findings help account for the fact that men are more interested in pornography, more likely to flirt with strangers and more likely to stray as spouses.
But social psychologists and even some evolutionary psychologists aren't convinced. They say Schmitt's study is impressive, but his findings are far from universal. And they challenge every one of Schmitt's and Buss's assumptions and conclusions.
Because of society's double standard, Fisher said, women are hesitant to report their true sexual desires. In one study, she asked men and women to report whether they masturbated, watched soft-core pornography or hard-core pornography. Each "yes" got a point. She found, on average, that men scored 2.32 and women 0.89.
But she also found that women's scores changed depending on how confident they were of remaining anonymous. In the study, both men and women had been told to hand their questionnaires to a researcher. But when women were told to deposit their answers in a locked box supervised by a researcher, their average score jumped to 1.53. And when the women took the test alone in a locked room and then deposited their answers in a locked box -- ensuring privacy and anonymity -- their score shot up further, to 2.04. The men's answers did not change significantly, indicating they were less concerned about their opinions being discovered.
In Schmitt's international study, students answering the survey sat together in classrooms, filled out the questionnaires and deposited them in a locked box. Some were asked to mail in their responses.
Fisher, who works at OSU's Mansfield campus, also found that when anonymity was guaranteed, women reported having sex for the first time at a younger age. Men guaranteed anonymity raised the age when they first had sex.
"No parent in any culture ever tells a daughter, 'By all means, go have sex,' " said Pamela Regan, an evolutionary psychologist at California State University in Los Angeles who disagrees with Schmitt and Buss. By contrast, she said, "many expect their sons to 'be men,' which implies sexual experience."
Eagly and Regan argue that men's and women's sexual choices and desires grow more similar in societies with greater gender equality -- a contention supported by Schmitt's own data.
Regan added that other evolutionary theories are just as plausible as the male promiscuity argument: Men in hunter-gatherer societies who stuck with a single mate and helped raise children might have been more genetically successful -- because passing on genes means not just having children but ensuring they survive long enough to reproduce in turn.
Other research has contradicted the finding that heterosexual men mainly seek young, beautiful women, while heterosexual women are most drawn to rich men. Last month, Stephen T. Emlen, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University, reported in a study that people basically want partners with qualities they attribute to themselves. Contrary to stereotypes about wealthy Mr. Rights and beautiful Ms. Wonderfuls, he said, attractive people tend to value attractiveness, wealthy people value mates with money, and ambitious types and family-oriented souls tend to gravitate to others like themselves.
The desire for similar mates, Emlen found, was five to six times more powerful than the desire for beautiful or wealthy partners. Emlen's study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And David DeSteno, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston, took aim at the other corollary of the evolutionary psychologists' theory: that men fear sexual infidelity while women fear emotional infidelity. Under test conditions designed to elicit gut responses, both men and women reported that sexual infidelity would bother them more, said DeSteno, whose work was published last year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
If there's one thing almost everyone agrees on, it is that genes do not decide what people ultimately do.
Indeed, the interests of individuals often conflict with the interests of their genes -- and the strongest evidence for this is that in most industrialized societies, birth rates are falling. People are choosing not to have children, or to adopt, or to enter into **** relationships -- all antithetical to the idea of passing on genes.
"I have heard people say, 'I can't help it, I am a man -- I have to spill my seed,' " said Regan. "That's using science to justify your bad behavior.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
After reading the article, I just had to think, "Wow." There was some very good points brought up from both sides, and I'd have a really hard time making a decision. But being blessed by my personal bias, this decision is easy to make!
I have seen the Discovery channel agree with the statement that the above statistic implies. In the show, it suggested men wanted more partners to ensure that at least some of their offspring would be able to survive, and indeed many animals seem to use this tactic. But as the article above states, a male can be equally successful in ensuring the continuation of his offspring by caring for his children, and some animals also use this tactic as well. The classic struggle between quantity vs. quality <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> .
With women... well the article doesn't seem to state a "scientific hypothesis" as to why women would want more partners. Personally, I don't think that there really is a scientific generalization why women would want more partners or less, though my assumption is that women do in fact want one partner so they don't end up becoming a single parent. This assumption only applies to women consummating for the purpose of having children, though. Women having sex not for the purpose of having children, well, assuming that their morality disregards monogamy, they wouldn't care about how many partners they had now, would they? The only thing they'd want to make sure is that they don't get pregnant. No responsibility? Good. The fun continues...
Let's see what you folks have to say...
Comments
While it wasn't mentioned in the article, there is one. In some primate species, there is a dominant male. When this dominant male is replaced by other one, the new dominant male will kill all infants (after all he wants the females). However if the female mated with him before hand, there's a chance that it could be his kid and won't kill the infant.
Another possible reason is that some primate species most like humans, the females conceal ovumlation (as in humans). This means a male has no major clue of when she's fertile. The female mates with many partners and has offspring. Since the males can't tell if it's their kid or not, they'll help her as it could be their offspring. More supporters = more likely the kid would make it helping the female out (as she knows the offspring is hers)
Other things about monogamy (as in having only one partner) is that it helps out men. Since populations are roughly 50-50 men and women, this means that for every guy with 5 partners, there's 4 guys without a date. Also it gives women more bargining power as they will be able to go to join another (stable) household much more easily (they may not say so directly but it'll still be a factor) as she could move with Joe and his 6 wives up the road. However these advantages are lost when the ratio between men and women are greatly off 1:1 and when women don't choose who they pair up with (as in a culture with arranged marriages).
Seriously, let's this be a taboo. In the end, we're resposible for our actions even though we have natural impulses for that action <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
[i]Xenocide[i] had a good way of explaining it.
Humans has evolved far away from animals. We have more or less diminished the factors for natural selection and we can create life in labatories. We got the ability to think and we got moral and a complex psyche. Humans <b>aren't</b> just instinct driven animals despite how many times you state it.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
It isn't too unnatural. The article stated that the success rate of passing genes can be accomplished by the male caring for the children to ensure that they have a better survival rate, rather than sperm spamming.
There are animals that do this. Several birds mate for life (i.e., swans). Wolves do as well, and you might consider them to be very unnatural, considering the fact that only the alpha male and female have the exclusive power to have pups.
Hmm... here's an interesting article: <a href='http://www.worldwildlife.org/news/headline.cfm?newsid=243' target='_blank'>My Feathered Valentine </a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Experts estimate that only five percent of all mammal species (excluding humans) are believed to be monogamous, compared to nearly 90 percent of all bird species. Monogamy is defined as a mating system in which one male mates with just one female in a breeding season. Animals which are believed to "mate for life" comprise only a handful of species. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Biology I'm afraid never preached equality.
and Wolves aren't exactly something you can compare this to as Wolves mate for life, but only the Alpha male will mate. The other wolves in the pack eventually split off to try and make their own pack with a female. and my Spirit Animal is a Wolf, so if you insult them "i kill you dead".
Read <i> Xenocide</i>, that explains my theory, when Miro, Valentine and Ender have the big talk near the end.
That which lives, twines.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Confuzor, humans have a great conundrum built into them. They both want to spread the seed as far and wide as possible but then they also want to remain and take care of the child.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you're sticking with the notion that humans are simply animals and nothing more, I don't think this conundrum is exclusive to us.
<i>Taken from Encarta:</i>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The male bird has the best chance of passing his genes to the next generation if he establishes a monogamous relationship with the female, sticks around, and helps feed his helpless offspring. Some birds, however, such as sage grouse and turkeys, produce young that are well developed and need relatively little parental care. <b>In this case, the male has the best chance of passing his genes to the next generation if he is polygynous</b>, mating with as many females as possible, so that his sperm will fertilize the widest variety of eggs.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would suggest that birds themselves want to spam their seed as much as possible, as well as remain to care any of their young. Since time only allows for only one option, birds will choose which one best suits them. In this case, birds with naturally strong children will ditch them so they can get to more partners.
Deriving from this, I fell for a fallacious hypothesis: it seems in history, the upper class or royalty seem well known for having many wives/concubines, *cough* Henry VIII *cough*. My assumption was that the males of the poorer classes could not afford to be in polygamous relationships, since these children would be off to a more rocky start, but that isn't the case. You're free the disregard this next sentence as I can't cite an official source, but speaking with my dad on old school China, polygamous relationships could be observed in non-wealthy familes as well; one of my dad's classmates I believe remains married to two women, and the father of our current pastor was also married to two women as well. In one of these cases, or possibly both, they tallied up a whopping 20+ children. SUCCESS! And this is in spite of the fact that these familes weren't exactly upper class. [edit]Okay, I checked with my dad again, they weren't poor, just middle class. Still, he still says that even in poor classes, polygamous relationships took place. And it was my grand uncle (also polygamous), who has 27 children[/edit]
So what scientific factors actually make humans choose whether seed spam, or remain to care for the children, if any?
Honestly, I think science plays only a small role in this entire behaviour business. Men who sleep around a lot DON'T want their partners to have children. I guess I'm just biased by the glimpses of crap I see on talk shows, but aren't the men there generally trying to deny the fact that they are the father so they don't need to pay child support? In short, <b>they don't care about the children that their partners gave birth to</b>. In their eyes, those babies were accidents, and they must be pretty PO'd that their contraceptive failed. So many arguements have been directed that the purpose of sex isn't about procreation anymore. In <i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i>, it's about "growing closer", there's a spirtual element behind it, which I think is possibly the best purpose. The cynic that I am, however, I feel much of it has now boiled down to irresponsible lust and pleasure, not about "growing closer" or even something as primitve as continuing genes.
At the same time human males want to travel and spread the seed, but at the same time they want to stay with the mate and raise the child. Nature or Nurture.
Samwise, i'm just restarting the Bean series after not having read it for 2 months, give me a while to re-read it as my personal library @ college consists of only 2 books right now because i don't have any extra space.