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Letters
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 12:00 AM

Screw all this, I'm marrying a flatworm

Sexual promiscuity is rampant throughout nature, much as it is in our tabloids these days.

The letters thread is now closed.

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008 04:41 PM

I love the baboon model of human behavior

My neighbor's kids tasted good. I've humped hundreds of guys this month to maximize the strength and vitality of my offspring. It's starting to itch and drip a little bit down there, but I'm sure that will pass.

Damn those prudish flatworms to hell.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 08:04 PM

There's always one way to ensure your spouse is faithful...

Rather than the flatworm, you could always follow the praying mantis model...

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 08:26 PM

Flatworms? Try lesbians

We're monogamous as all get-out. No reason not to stick to your own species.

P.S. We lesbians think women generally get sexier *after* age 35. And not just Susan Sarandon.

Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:59 AM

THe Dr. Laura Model

What in the Dr. Laura model accounts for the fact that Silda's other big "mistake" is "not being 22"?

That seems to be a common feature of these scenarios, doesn't it?

Thursday, March 20, 2008 06:31 AM

Interesting theory

We lesbians think women generally get sexier *after* age 35. And not just Susan Sarandon.

There is always this struggle between reverting to the atavistic behavior that has helped our species to evolve over millions of years, and the complex rules and social codes that societies have developed over the last few thousand years.

For almost the entirety of human history women have been perceived as at their most sexually alluring in the years immediately following sexual maturity, but, if the above is correct, or true for a significant number of people, then women are at their most attractive at an age that they would already have been dead or regarded as aged for most of evolutionary history.

This may well be indicative of men and women having different ideas as to what is sexually attractive. It is true that the French have always had that thing about the femme d'un certain age, (or maybe it is just that French writers have written about it) but worldwide patterns of reproduction and age of childbearing suggest that men are still primarily driven more by biological urges.

In a strongly verbal species like hours, the older woman can compensate for failing biological allure by becoming a good conversationalist, and companion, and knowing how to repair things, and maybe that contributes to sexual attractiveness.

On the other hand "lesbian bed death" is a term invented by sex researcher Pepper Schwartz to describe the supposedly inevitable diminishment of sexual passion in long term lesbian relationships. The term is sometimes used to refer to diminished sexual activity in any long term relationship.

A German study found that the sex drive of women tends to drop once they are in a secure relationship.

One professor said: The rational for why a woman's sex drive declines may be down to supply and demand. If something is in infinite supply, the perceived value would drop.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4790313.stm

So here is the math, according to this theory.

Women have a high sex drive when they are seeking a mate. Once mate is found, sex drive diminishes.

Men have a high sex drive all the time--in evolutionary terms this makes sure that the women don't cheat.

When women want less sex, then men are more easily attracted by other women--hence cheating.

I don't think this is the only factor. I think men also have a built in love of change. Making love to a different body for the first time is, by definition, a unique and memorable kind of experience and one that is very sought after.

Combine all this together, and I think you have a theory of why men in long term marriages often have sex outside of the marriage.

I suspect, but I don't know for sure, that this is more likely to happen as men get older, for various reasons. I think that when they are younger, men are more focused on their careers, children, providing for a family, teaching their son to play baseball, participating in sports themselves and so on. As the children become more independent, he is more established in his career, less ambitious, earning more money, taking nice vacations with the wife etc., there are less challenges in his life.

He is getting older, his physical vitality is declining. His place on the baseball team has been taken by his son. Sex with the wife is very occasional and not very exciting--a comfortable ritual on a few Sunday mornings. He experiences the first intimations of mortality. He asks himself "is that all there is?".

There is a very famous song by Lieber and Stoller about this phenomenon that was once a great hit for Peggy Lee.

SPOKEN

And when I was 12 years old, my father took me to a circus, the greatest show on earth. There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears. And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads. And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle. I had the feeling that something was missing.

I don't know what, but when it was over, I said to myself, "is that all there is to a circus?

SUNG:

Is that all there is, is that all there is

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

If that's all there is...

And then at some point, he says to himself, yes, this probably is all there is, but before I die I want to ...

Thursday, March 20, 2008 07:35 AM

More pseudoscience to justify what men want

I gotta tell you -- I hate being compared to other animals whose consciousness doesn't even come close to the human consciousness! What gives with that kind of backwards thinking? Not to mention, as if evolution stopped some several hundred years ago and we aren't evolving now?

Umm... this kind of pseudoscientific philosophical artifice made for the purpose of subtly justifying the sexist power norm (Men want it, women! Don't you understand?), is just so much claptrap.

Couple of thoughts -- (1) We have a higher consciousness and some say it is because of our particular human brain structure. (2) That ability to process our alleged biological drives allows us to make choices (isn't that an interesting concept). (3) Collaboration and not competition is the driving human evolutionary force at this time. (4) Having fewer children is a likely driving human evolutionary force at this time (i.e., there is no substantial advantage to "being fertile and multiplying." (5) One could even go so far as to say that there is a present human evolutionary pressure to increase the incidence of homosexuality given the need to reduce or stabilize human populations. (6) Evolution didn't just happen in the past, so don't get stuck in the past -- it is only relevant as to ascertaining what might be our biological baggage, but it does not control us, nor does it stay static.

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