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Monday, March 10, 2008 12:00 AM

The sexual politics of household chores

One writer reenacts a day in the life of a 1950s housewife. Meanwhile, will doing the dishes get men laid?

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  • Tuesday, March 11, 2008 06:01 PM

    @ Dick

    It is true also that for biological reasons women are instinctively, "selfishly" invested in NON-SEXUAL relationships in a way men are not. This is because female relationships to help other females with their kids are almost as important to reproductive success as a mate. For males on the other hand other males are only real friends if they help each other have the status that will get them women. This is why men are less "deep" at social relationship in general and why womens non sexual friendships can be so twisted and weird, jealous, obsessive, in a way that for men only happens in sexual relationships. Confusion over this difference causes enormous difficulties between men and women.

    The problem with your reasoning is that it's not based in any actual science, just guesess, and that it assumes that our relationships are governed by instincts we developed tens of thousands of years ago while living in completely different circumstances. Evolution does continue -- tens of thousands of years may not seem like that much, but "Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record in Africa about 130,000 years ago," which is not that long ago. Moreover, the other, more bothersome underlying assumption of your reasoning is that humans living in modern conditions cannot possibly adapt through the use of their minds, that the mind cannot overcome these instincts we allegedly all have, and that nurture has little influence on how we act and who we are.

    I'm a little surprised LeCastor that you keep harping on all the distorted science of the past. It seems absurd to argue that because science has been misused and distorted no science can be right if it is related to a sensitive subject.

    Agreed. That's why I keep asking to you actually present the science you are claiming backs up your hypothesis, but then you tell me that "that would be useless."

    If men were sexually put off by obnoxiousness in women as easily as women are put off by obnoxiousness in men sexual relations would cease entirely

    Do you have any evidence, or are you just running your mouth?

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