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 Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 4:46 pm Post subject: Re: My Theory of Homosexuality in a Gourd Shell
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| Jason_Els wrote: | I posted this in reply to another thread at the mill and I'm quite happy with it. I'd like to know what the brainiacs here have to think:
| Jason_Els wrote: | Doesn't it? Ogg's maturing daughter needs a mate. He sees Fug and Fag kill a bison and notes they are good hunters and how strong they are. Perhaps Fag.... wait, no. Fug! Yes, Fug will make a good mate for Ogg's daughter. Better invite Fug over for dinner.
Given what we know about the superior ability of women to notice detail, I suspect they would do even better in this test and that would certainly show a more direct biological purpose.
Perhaps the ability of men to detect sexual preference in other men is the same ability men would use to determine lesbianism in women? The ability may just happen to work in determining sexual orientation in both sexes. I would have liked them to have expanded this study to see if men do as well with lesbian faces.
Still, I believe gaydar does serve a biological interest as it is only relatively recently in human society, and in only some cultures, that gays are not expected to reproduce. Pairing and reproducing has been the overriding concern for societies no matter what one's sexual orientation is. You WILL marry and YOU will inseminate your wife has been the overriding concern of nearly every society we know of. My guess is that the sociological reproductive imperative has overriden that of sexual preference.
IF homosexuality is genetic, then we need a working theory as to why this apparently self-extinguishing gene has survived for so long. |
| Irish wrote: | An interesting point, I just can't bring myself to agree with it. I don't think Ogg invited Fug or Fag over for dinner and courting and romance of his daughter. Usually, in the animal kingdom, a male "advertises" in some way and females respond. There's no romance.
If a male (in nature) is advertising to females an interest in mating, nobody needs Gaydar. I'm just not buying it as an evolutionary tool. |
| Jason_Els wrote: | Usually, yes. Humans though are different. I have heard a theory that romance developed parallel to erotic pleasure and that the root of both developed when humans began walking upright and lost the os penis. For human males to act on sexual arousal, they would need more than an autonomic response to sensory displays or pheromones to achieve erection and penetration. There are debates that romance also helped to maintain pair bondings particularly until a child had reached some measure of independence. I have even heard it speculated that the so-called, "seven year itch," may be a remnant of an instinctive urge for males to leave the romantic pair bond and move on. A child of seven is minimally independent and thus, much less of a burden on a mother than a younger child or infant. Humans too are also unique in higher mammals in that the females are fecund at all times (which is why they always have prominent breasts). Romantic love may be the very glue required to assist the species as a whole to survive and particlarly so during the early years of childhood when the physical and nutritional demands made on a mother by an infant or young child could mean that both would stand less chance of survival without a male bonded to them both in some way.
There is also theory that when humans developed foresight, self-awareness, and complex memory recall, that we quickly adapted our mating times to be whenever we thought was best. Human children require an extraordinary amount of time and care to rear to independence and they are also very helpless for an equally extraordinary time compared to other animals of any other species. When humans gained intelligence, we very quickly gained reproductive control. That this occurred points to the long and complex social interdependence of humans. It takes into account our unique ability to forecast events that may effect our survival and consciously change our reproductive behavior as a result*.
Bisexuality in higher mammals appears to be strictly limited to social species and humans are an extremely social species thus I expect that bisexuality must somehow serve the survival of social species. This theory is shared by some animal behaviorists who believe that male-to-male sexual contact lessens male competition and fosters cooperation within the group, thus leading to a better chance of survival for all group members. In species without bisexual bonding, males are characteristically more apt to fight each other for dominance (and mating rights) or territory to the point of serious injury or death. Social species need numbers and cooperation to survive. Males frequently killing each other within the same social group harms not only the potential genetic pool but group chances for survival.
A very interesting example that this may be the case is demonstrated by the female hyena. Female hyenas have exceptional levels of testosterone. They are larger and more aggressive than males of the species and even have a pseudopenis. In hyenas, a very social species, it is the females who primarily engage in bisexual behaviors.
I'm going out on a limb here and thinking that if humans started at some point in the distant past, just as all the other animals, that we would have the same tendency to bisexuality as the other higher social mammals with dominant males but, because we later developed a unique ability to control our time of reproduction, and developed romantic love, that homosexuality as we understand it, developed into what it is today. Our social rituals eventually grew away from the need for group males to bond sexually in order to keep peace within the tribe, but the (genetic?) desire to do so didn't fall away because the social imperative to reproduce regardless of sexual attraction didn't hinder reproduction. A genetic trait will stay around either because a) it helps reproduction and/or survival, or b) because it doesn't hinder reproduction or survival.
Our exceptionally heavy investment in child bearing, rearing, and the exceptional needs of human children made the institution of pair bonding, or marriage, so important that the biseuxal tendencies of males was seen as a threat. If a man was being sexually gratified by other men, he might delay reproducing or even prefer homosexual sex to heterosexual and thus never reproduce. Human pair bonding, mating, and framily raising rituals are very time and resource consuming and prior to modern medicine, early death was much more common than it is now. Most societies, because again of the human ability to forecast potential threats, regarded the establishment of a reproductive pair to be imperative and thus fostered its creation at the earliest opportunity; frequently right at or even just before puberty.
Other societies however, recognized male bisexual bonding as an asset to their societies and encouraged it. The most widely known example is that of ancient Greece. The classical Greeks tended to marry relatively late and it was expected that young men would seek out pubertal males to engage in sexual activities. In many ways, this would be a young man's introduction to society. Boys debuted, as it were, and the more handsome boys developed quite a following of young men who sought them out, competing with each other by giving the boys gifts, helped them with their fortunes, or apprentice them in various disciplines. When the boy reach late puberty the sexual aspect of the relationship was expected to end, but the friendships frequently lasted lifetimes. In all cases, men were expected to marry by the time they were 30 (late marriage a reflection of the prosperity and good health of developed civilizations). Unlike Athens, Sparta was heavily regimented in this regard. Boys left home at age 7 to join a barracks where homosexual contact was encouraged; the theory being that a man would fight harder for his lovers than for mere friends. The policy also allowed the Spartan elders, who were frequently off on campaigns, to keep younger males out of their homes and thus lessen the chances of infidelity. A Spartan could not marry until 31. Until then, his sexual life consisted of other men and professional prostitutes.
Other societies recognized homosexuals as man/woman, where a man would take on the societal role, dressing, acting and treated as a woman, frequently for widowers who had already reproduced. Still other societies created roles for homosexuals that put them in close social contact with women as women went about their daily lives (hair dressers, dress makers, interior decorators, household stewards) while men were out of the house. Some societies expected boys of the ages between puberty and maturity to engage in sexual play and found it a good outlet for their sexual frustrations as it prevented unwed girls from becoming pregnant. The Samba of Papua today still segregate men from women in separate quarters and boys nearing puberty are expected to fellate other men to ejaculation thus taking in the strength of the men they are fellating. The semen is also thought to stimulate the production of semen in the young boys themselves. Once again, this behavior is both time and situation limited. Marriage and reproduction is still the norm at maturity.
Left to late western social constructs that allow homosexuals not to reproduce, that the trait would stand a chance of dying out completely as humans with the trait are no longer as pressured to reproduce as they once were and thus fewer offspring would carry on the trait. Yet this is not what's happening. Homosexuals are still reproducing as much as they ever have and now the social construct of medicine has provided homosexuals with a means of reproducing without sexual intercourse. We have surrogacy, gay/lesbian parenting partnerships, and sperm banks to take the place of the institution of pair bonding via marriage. We are thus free to engage in our romantic and sexual preferences while still fulfilling the ages old imperative to reproduce. It is my opinion that the more homosexuals reproduce, the more socially acceptable they will become.
I am also deeply curious about the role of homosexuals across many different societies. Very often they seem to be the pacifiers, the peacemakers, the sex that bridges the gap between the sexes and acts as a pacifier of intermale aggression. Homosexuals DO seem to be more attuned to nuance, aesthetic, and emotion. I highly suspect that in those earliest societies like those of my two exemplars, Ogg and Una, that gay men helped calm aggressions, settle disputes, or otherwise contributed something necessary to the bonding of the community.
Ogg and Una have had a spat and Ogg is sleeping in the dinohouse. Ogg comes to work grumpy and upset making all the other men tense. Ogg can't concentrate on hunting mastodon and since he's the leader, the other men have to do what he says. They're unhappy too. Fag notices Ogg is upset and speaks to Ogg about his emotions and what has happened. Maybe he even offers to give Ogg a blowjob or an ass to fuck to relieve his sexual tensions. After work Fag goes to talk to Una. Ogg and the rest of the tribe see Fag and Una talking away and do not disturb them. Ogg and the tribe know Fag will not try anything with Una and Una feels Fag is a good listener. She tells Fag all about her argument with Ogg over whether to decorate Ogg's cave in sabre tooth tiger or bear skin. Fag understands Una and what she is trying to say to Ogg. After many hours of talking, Fag returns to Ogg and offers to take him over to Grob's Fermented Honey Hut for a drink. There he explains Una's problem in a way that Ogg can understand much better than by simply listening to Una's apparently illogical ravings. Fag suggests that Ogg allow Una to decorate the cave in tiger skin but that Una will agree to allow Ogg to keep his personal recess decorated in bear skin as it always has. After a few gourds of fermented honey, Ogg lopes home to Una and all is well.
Fag too helps with other clan problems. Fag (an Omega male) is good with children and he can be trusted to look after them when the clan are all out together gathering berries at the dangerous edge of their territory where men have to keep watch over the women. Two young males, Guh and Duh got into a fight where they nearly killed each other and each male has friends who side with him. This could be disasterous for the clan, but Fag steps in and mediates between the two groups, each group knowing that Fag is not a threat to them because he is friendly with members of each group.
I suspect humanity owes a great deal to Fag and other homosexuals like him.
*As a tangent, it has also been noted that the other higher mammal most dependent on society for surival is the dog. It may not be coincidence that humans and dogs have complemented each other since the dawn of time. |
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Response:
Excellent points, Jason, but I think you're overstating the biological imperative to reproduce. If every member of the clan or tribe reproduced maximally then it would upset the balance of the local ecosystem and strain the resources available within it.
In patriarchal societies it's the first-born male who is required to produce an heir in order to maintain his family's status in the pecking order. Younger sons are the expendable ones who are sent to war or the ones who off go on other adventures. If every son (and his sons) had equal status in a family, then the competition to be the patriarch would be too intense. These "lesser" sons are off the hook, reproductively speaking.
A good example would be the British Royal family. It was only until Prince William was born that the Duke of York had any pretense of hope to ascend to the throne. And even while William was a young boy, if anything had happened to his grandmother and father (say a car accident or some terrible swift illness), Andrew still was out of the running except perhaps as Regent until Wills came of age.
It's really only the first-born who shoulders the burden of a reproductive imperative, as he's the one expected to eventually become the patriarch of his family, and by extension one of the tribe's elites.
In matriarchal societies there is even a lesser burden placed on reproduction. Although it's unclear, there is a theory that much of pre-Celtic Europe was matriarchal in nature and that they worshiped a Gaia-type (or lunar or both) primary Goddess, not a patriarchal Sun (or Storm) God. In such a society, the imperative would shift from males to females. I find such a structure fascinating to consider.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens has been around for at least 8,000,000 years (perhaps much longer, if certain fossil evidence is considered), but agriculture and urbanism is recent: no more than 600-700,000 years (unless we suffer from some great amnesia following the collapse of the Ice Age and have forgotten an "antediluvian" civilization before all that ice melted). This means that we evolved as a nomadic people, hunting and gathering on the go. As such, it would be a distinct disadvantage to be saddled with too many young children.
And if we presume that the hunting parties were majority (if not exclusively) masculine, then the segregation by sex must have been a major fact of life for those people. Undoubtedly such separation of men from women necessitated same-sex eroticism. Whether or not the alpha males (first-born sons) made up the elites of the hunters or stayed to protect their wives and children and left such "chores" to socially inferior males makes a difference, too. I suspect that, at least in strongly patriarchal societies, it was the latter: the men with something to lose did not leave his wife (or wives) and children alone and vulnerable too long.
And as much as I enjoyed reading about your Flinstonesque archetypes, they do seem like projections of modern behaviors onto people with very different, unknowably alien priorities. But maybe the human condition is more universal than I realize.
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