I was reading a book last night in which part of it mentioned about how some people, even at a fairly old age (i.e., early teens?) think that kissing can lead to pregnancy, and there have also been Internet posts talking about how some people even in older married age still did not know how sex and reproduction works.
And it seems that, with humans vs. animals, that this sort of thing could never happen in the animal kingdom because any animal species that had to be taught how to copulate might go extinct; surely no animal ever has any doubt how reproduction works or at least, what they should be doing to keep their species going? No sex-ed classes for katydids, kangaroos, gerbils, etc.
Is this so? Is there any animal that ever struggles to figure out how to copulate, that actually doesn’t know how it’s done? Are humans more clueless, generally speaking, on this issue than animals are?
Animals don’t know how sex works, either. They do what they’re compelled to do, and what feels good.
This works for people, too, which is why there are a lot of unwanted and unintended pregnancies.
Animals don’t have to know about menstrual cycles, or the swimming of sperm, or the many stages of cell division and implantation in order to reproduce, and neither do people.
If you’re saying that people have to be taught how to find an appropriate mate (or, in cases, like mine, to be able to find any mate)*, then that’s a very differenmt question. But enough people will fall into a fecund match without sex education, mixers, and the self-help industry to ensure the perpetuation of the species
*This should not be seen as any sort of criticism of Pepper Mill
I believe humans will figure it out even if it takes a few tries. I remember back when I was a pre teen wrestling with girls. My humping instinct kicked in and I was kind of embarrassed and really didn’t know why I did it. Once I reached puberty and learned about sex I understood what was happening.
Anyone familiar with the process of breeding dogs (or any other animal) will tell you that animals don’t “just get it” any more than humans do. Inexperienced studs can make the process much more uncertain.
I was about to mention dogs… we had one Chihuahua male that was a life-long hopeless stud. He’d get all excited like he was supposed to, but then he’d just flop onto his back and hump the female’s ankle. He did this his entire life, and would get all passive and resist any “assistance” we’d give… even if you put that little idiot in the exact right position and held the other dog there, he’d just freeze until you let go and then he’d either wander off or flop on his back and go for the ankle.
Too bad; he had very good show feature for his breed but was just hopeless.
Humans would figure out how sex works in the wild. They’d realize ejaculating in a vagina feels good for both parties. That’s all that matters, does it feel good.
Having said that I’ve heard humans are one of the few species with hidden ovulation. We can’t tell when a woman is ovulating or not. I’m not sure why that happened, maybe so women can maintain plausible deniability over paternity, don’t know.
Well, I would surmise that animals in the wild learn by watching. Those that don’t are unsuccessful. Domesticated dogs are not in the wild, with the attendant gaps in knowledge.
Humans are a bit unique in that we have society and shame and whatnot. So, based on upbringing, some would have been deliberately sheltered from mechanics and technical details. So, I would say the instinct is there. But society is so constructed as to suppress instinct.
I used to teach swimming which is odd because swimming is an instinct. Throw new born human babies in a pool and they hold their breath if under water and paddle. Yet I had to teach adults how to do the same thing. Apparently our big brains get in the way of some instincts although honestly even adults who have never swam would probably float and putter around ok if thrown in water. It is their fear that kills them. They “know” they do not know how to swim and panic and it is the panic that kills them as they freak out and thrash about and expend energy quickly.
Yea I misspelled it. That pesky ‘o’. Aren’t they what attracts the opposite sex? I am willing to believe our olfactory sense has powers we don’t completely understand, yet. I know for a fact that certain odors make me remember events and times in my life. I would say the jury is still out on that. Imo.
It you learn to have sex by watching pr0n, you’ll end up with the money shot in her mouth or on her face every time. Which still feels pretty good. At least for him. But creates very few babies. For which many a highschooler is eternally grateful.
When we put out a lot of disinformation, a lot of information suppression, and also a lot of good information, some percentage of people are going to fall for each.
If there’s one problem with total human fecundity its that we have too much, not too little. A few clueless non-reproducers isn’t hurting anything except their own genetic legacy.
The human mind is somewhat different, since we are more of a blank slate and learn rather than knowing instinctually. This is a characteristic of a lot of higher mammals, but humans take it to the extreme. Fortunately, evolution has provide us with herds - er, tribes - so we have (had) elders and peers to learn from, so lack of some instinct was not a serious impediment… in the wild. (Kind of hard to hide the process when everyone lives in the same one-room grass hut.) Civilization ahs simply played mind games with us. We went from herds, where the major concern was to prevent fights over women, to civilization, where it is more an individual or family effort to survive. Repression of sex was a way to ensure that children did not appear until the parents were sufficiently established to care for the family, rather than the entire tribe feeding each other. However, our hind brain still manages to figure out sex generally if social constraints and threats don’t get in the way.
You’ll sometimes see a factoid floating around that <insert species here> and humans are the only animals that have sex for fun. This is exactly backwards. Only humans ever have sex for any reason other than fun. No animal other than us knows that sex leads to reproduction. All the rest just do it because it’s fun (which is just another way of saying that it’s instinctive). And honestly, that’s the reason for the vast majority of human intercourse, too. So if a few humans manage to not know that sex leads to reproduction, that makes them more like other animals, not less.
Saying animals have sex for fun is like saying we breath for fun. Plus compare dog behavior when they are in heat (or season as Guide Dogs calls it) or not. Not a conscious decision.