Why Monogamy Is Ridiculous

I don't think there is any evidence that courtship and relationship building is any less fundamental a mating strategy than opportunistic assault, among humans.

For starters, rape is seldom a reliable reproductive strategy in animals that require extensive child care, and is not even a good impregnation tactic in a mammal without clear and reliable fertility markers.

So it seems unlikely that self-control is necessary to curb a natural impulse to rape in most men. Not even sublimation. The visible evidence is the other way around - a fairly large percentage of rapists (and other coercive or contractual situations such as prostitution) seem to be engaging in fantasy and pursuing a delusion, even to the point of needing some kind of role-played imitation of courtship and seduction, as if they were "sublimating" a need for willing cooperation.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yes.
What I said earlier, in order to impregnate it helps to have the woman put up with you for at least a few months? Yeah.
That's going to be a more reliable reproductive strategy when a woman's only going to be fertile roughly two days a month...and the chances of happening to assault her on precisely those days when there's no external way to tell are going to be small.

Now maybe the scattershot approach gains in number of opportunities versus success rate in impregnation.

I still think the former's going to work better...and be less likely to get your head bashed in with a rock by your average cavewoman.
Or earn you ostracism from your clan.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Guns change everything . Woman with a gun look out . More Men are murdered by there wives then visa-versa. Girls like to have sex with Peacock Guys still . They are called Musical super stars . Famous Actors fit the bill too. Look at the latest star and you can see which way the cookie is crumbling. A world of Justin Beavers come on down . Get your poontang on

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

First, while complementarity is fine, OF COURSE you can find homosexual partners who are complementary over various traits too...And not all traits are binary. You can bee good at verbalization, but poor at visio-spatial skills and at finance and mathematics, partner number two can be great with finances, but less adept verbally and visually, and partner 3 can be visual, but not verbal or good with finances. A good analogy here would be the pitcher, catcher and batter...and the rest of the team. Some people make better third basemen than they do first basemen.

I do agree that men and women are not the same, but you seem to ignore the possibility of individual variation to too great an extent. It is entirely possible for there to be some men who have all of the sorts of qualities that you suggest women have, and vice versa.

Second, it's a myth that the male sex drive can simply be redirected into other pursuits. It's not some excess of energy that can be used for anything, it's more like having a craving for pizza, or chocolate. When my girlfriend is craving chocolate, I don't tell her to channel that craving into her career, or into building a deck, or anything else. Now, some men when they are frustrated at not getting enough sex will focus on other things, but that is to distract them from their unmet craving. Those men are what is known as "less happy than they could be."

Third, many women do in fact enjoy sex as much as men. If you are a woman, perhaps you man isn't doing it well. If you're a man, perhaps the fault isn't with your partner's biology, but with your technique. That said that some women enjoy sex less than their partners is also undeniably true.

Fourth, while some men do grate on one another, we don't hold a candle to women. I have no fewer than ten female friends who lament their inability to find other female friends who aren't catty, hyper-critical, prone to severing all ties the moment they feel insulted or get a man in their lives and/or overly competitive with them. In contrast, male friends rarely bicker to the same extent (which is why, I suspect, all ten of these women I mentioned have male friends, and are really looking for female friends that they "click with" in the same way).

Most males have a strong cadre of very close friends, and the jokes and pranks strengthen the relationships. Many women, in contrast, are often petty with one another (though, in my experience, less so with men than they are with each other).

 

Good post.

 

Indeed, in modern society the evidence is that assault is a much LESS successful strategy, since we put rapists in jail where mating is somewhat more difficult (and much less fruitful.)

However, keep in mind that one of the most successful males in all of history (from a purely evolutionary perspective, NOT a moral perspective) was Genghis Khan:

================================
Genghis Khan a Prolific Lover, DNA Data Implies
Hillary Mayell
National Geographic News
February 14, 2003

Genghis Khan, the fearsome Mongolian warrior of the 13th century, may have done more than rule the largest empire in the world; according to a recently published genetic study, he may have helped populate it too.

An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data have found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today. . . .

Documents written during or just after Khan's reign say that after a conquest, looting, pillaging, and rape were the spoils of war for all soldiers, but that Khan got first pick of the beautiful women.
==============================

Since then, of course, we have advanced as a society a good deal, and such crimes would no longer be tolerated.

 

But Genghis's reproductive success was not built on opportunistic, violent rape - the sort of tactic we are bid to consider all men resisting via self control. His baby-mommas were established in some kind of relationship to him, not assaulted by surprise and abandoned. He was rich and powerful, and his many children - legitimate and otherwise - were presumably (and by surviving account) well cared for by his efforts and expense.

He also maintained long term marriages, producing rich and powerful male children likewise enjoying access to many women - whose children were likewise protected and supported. He did not rape, in the poverty days of his youth: he married, and displayed loyalty and commitment to his wives from the first on. (One of his sons by his first wife was quite likely to have been the product of capture and rape by enemies - he took his wife back by force at considerable risk, and never disavowed either her or that son).

Thus his reproductive success was greater than that of any of his soldiers, many of whom had much more opportunity to rape.

 

I'm not making a distinction between kinds of rape. Rape is sex without consent, which is what we are talking about.

Absolutely. That was another factor to his reproductive success. However, had he not raped literally hundreds of women, his genome would not today be present in 8% of men in that area.

 

Thanks. You know, something I never noticed until I wrote that is that I have *never* had a friend (of either sex) who lamented "not having enough male friends." I've known those who lamented needing more friends in general (people who've moved to a new city or are coming out of a divorce, for example), and I have known/still know women who lament not having enough good female friends in particular.

I think men just collect "good male friends" easily...I suppose I should think on that before drawing any firm conclusions.

 

Then you are begging the evolutionary question, and talking about situations quite different from the ones that require the supposed self-control.

Genghis Khan's mating strategy was relationship and support, not assault and abandonment. The coercion involved was not significantly different, from an evolutionary perspective, than that of the standard marriages of many cultures past and present - such as the story-familiar arranged marriages of the recent European nobility.

 

Perhaps it is easier for men to be friends because when it comes right down to it, it's the women that compete for men, and not the other way around, although some fellows may think otherwise.

Certainly guys may express their interest, yet it the end, it is the female who decides, most often. Also, in my observation, women are more aggressive in stealing each other's boyfriends/husbands. Among the men that I know and respect, there is a code. You don't go to an attached female friend's house when her hubby isn't home, just to keep the tongues from wagging and to prevent temptation, which is a rather natural biological function.

I elected to not have children and so my female friends are those who likewise are without kids and more mature females, and I have somewhat more male friends than female ones.

 

Uh, no. I'm not making distinctions between types of rape.

If you are suggesting that Khan was a more "supportive" type of rapist I won't argue with you. However, nowadays that distinction is a meaningless one from a legal perspective.

No argument there. A great many women over the course of history have been forced to both have sex and to bear children for men, which is further demonstration of its benefits from a purely reproductive perspective. If anything Khan was unique only in the sheer numbers.

 

Okay, so some species are definitely monogamous, but how about Homo Sapiens?

I'd expect our natural sexual impulses to be more closely related to those of other great apes species than to other more distant species. And as far as I know, chimps and bonobos --both belonging to the great apes group-- are quite promiscuous when it comes to sexual behaviour. I haven't read much on the subject but my guess is that humans were also polygamous before they settled down for agriculture and animal domestication. And it's been, what?, something like 300 generations since -- enough time for such a behavioural change? I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if 300 generations from now on people will talk about monogamy only in past tense. (Except when rodents come up in the discussion ;-).)

 

Guys in general don't see women as they really are. They are usually shocked by what they hear if they by chance get to listen to a group of women talking when they don't think any men are around. Even after they know, it fades in their minds and they start acting as if they don't know. Men want women to fit into their belief system and the truth be damned.

 

Interesting.

Do elaborate.

From your perspective, what is this belief system that men hold in regard to women? I am interested in comparing it to what other gentlemen have shared with me.

 

Evolutionary pressure does, however. If you want to discuss "natural impulses" that are "sublimated" into "socially acceptable" outlets, you are going to have deal with evolutionary pressures. That's where the "natural impulses" come from.

We are not bothering with "legal perspective" that obscures physical fact.

What Genghis Khan did was perfectly legal.

I am simply pointing out that the natural impulse to marry, father and support children, establish a relationship and protection and support for the mother(s) of one's children, etc, is not what most people are talking about when they talk about a natural impulse to rape.

What is "it"? You are describing marriage and investment, establishing a protected relationship and nurturing children. Confusing that kind of reproductive strategy with assault and rape will prevent clear analysis.

The impulse to marry and support children is not the impulse you were discussing above - the one you claim most men need to curb via self control - is it?

 

I believe the way men and women think depends on how they are raised. In the U.S. men are brought up to be the bread winners and protectors of the family and women are brought up to look for men with those qualities and to be what men expect ( at least promote that illusion). The U.S. is such a melting pot for different cultures, especially in the cities that those ideals get mixed up and often cause problems that might not have happened in a homogenous culture.

Once a friend of mine had a girlfriend that spent a few months in jail, when she and another girl got released. They exhibited male characteristics in that they wanted to get laid first before anything else. That was an experience I didn't expect.

 

Shower first, then laid, then shower again, then some normal food. That would be my agenda should I ever have the misfortune to be a guest of the powers that be.

 

Thank you, I appreciate that thought.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

That man code is a myth used only on weaker males. They seem to fall for it. Man codes simply states that if you catch your girl messing around with your best friend, let your states crime of passion laws be your guide.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

It happens more than you think but we are supposed to pretend that it doesn’t bother us. So you don’t hear about it as often.