People are forgetting the fact that children raised together often aren’t attracted to each other. They don’t have to be related, they just have to grow up together. I’m not sure how much of that would apply to this kind of scenario. Let’s say the kids are 7 or so, which I believe is the youngest a feral child can be abandoned and still have a remote chance of survival.
This comes out of studies of kibutz children from, IIRC, the 60s. It was found that even children not related to each other tend not to form romantic relationships if they were raised together.
But in that case, the kids had alternatives for their sexual partners. Our Blue Lagoon couple, assuming they could survive, would have some natural “incest” taboo, but with no other sexual partners available, it’s likely that taboo would break down.
I doubt it was this article.
Why would you assume that? How often have you seen critters doing the hungabunga? I saw a couple of cats going at it once when I was young, and the way the female cat was yowling I was convinced the male was trying to kill her. I didn’t have a clue what was really going on until somebody told me.
I have no doubt, BTW, that sexual attraction is instinctive. I just wonder whether the actual act itself is in humans.
Barry
Key word being tend. Lots of kibbutz children have always married each other. They just do so at much lower rates than those that marry outsiders.
Actually, I learned about this from the traditional practice of minor marriage in China, where children are betrothed to each other, with the bride adopted into her future husband’s family in infancy. The girl is raised in the household and later married to the family’s son. The downside is that there’s no dowry and it’s less prestigious; the upside is that there’s a guaranteed wife for the male heir. Anyway, partners in minor marriages found each other sexually unattractive, and minor marriages produced fewer children, were more likely to end in separation or divorce, and were more likely to have infidelity.
And about the kibbutzim: an Israeli sociologist collected data on 2 769 marriages in kibbutzim, and he found that only 14 of them were between members of the same peer group. In all of them, one partner joined the peer group after six years old, just to bring this back to the original point.
So I guess it is still possible for Brooke and whatsisname to shack up, since the only way they would survive anyway is if they were at least 6 years old.
All this data came from my textbook, How Humans Evolved by Robert Boyd and Joan B. Silk.
Blake, I’m guessing those kibbutz marriages must be between children from different peer groups in the kibbutz.
Not counting on PBS?
Cats, dogs, rabbits, squirrels, several species of parrots, and slow lorises (small primates). We had a lot of pets when I was little. (This was in Duri, where neutering wasn’t really an option. In the 'States we keep our pets infertile.)
And let’s not even talk about the time we went by the Monkey House at the zoo in springtime…
I think it’s been established that the kids aren’t growing up in what you’d call an urban setting. Seeing critters going at it is inevitable.
Check out www.feralchildren.com. Apparently some, 3-5 y.o. mannaged to survive, IIRC, either on their own or with the support of social animals (wolves, apes…)
I remember reading something similar. Here’s the closest I can find so far, but I know there’s a much more detailed article or book about it somewhere:
http://users.rcn.com/napier.interport/cwm/experim.html
Of course, the key word is “tend”, and the lower rate is what the whole point is about. Our “incest taboo” doesn’t even stop all brothers and sisters from having sex (Appalachian jokes notwithstanding).
Well, I was studying my anthropology notes when I came across something that seemed relevant. Apparently, sex isn’t quite instinctual to animals, or at least to rhesus monkeys. The urge is there, but the knowledge isn’t. To wit:
From “The Social Development of Monkeys and Apes,” in Primate Behaviour: Field Studies of Monkeys and Apes (1965), emphasis added. I wish I could show you the picture, it shows the correct position (mounting from behind) and the position that the socially deprived males try (mounting from the side).
Later, it says:
So it’s still possible humans could learn how to do it, since humans by far have the most behavioural flexibility of any of the primates.
Those two comments are very typical of what others have written here. I agree with them, but only up to a point.
Consider the role of the hymen in all this.
Even if our shipwrecked couple decided to bring their experiment to the next level, in which Tab A was to be inserted into Slot B, the odds are pretty good that the owner of Slot B would put an end to that experiment pretty early on.
I can hear objections being raised, that women who have a good relationship with their first man do not insist that he cease and desist. But I think that this is because they have been taught to accept it as a temporary inconvenience. Today’s people understand that the pain of intercourse will eventually go away and it will become more pleasurable over time.
But our stranded couple has not been taught that. They might experiment with intercourse, but the female is likely to respond with something like, “So much for that idea! Why did we think that would work?” The male will probably answers, “I disgree! That was great! What’d we have to stop for?”, but in the end I bet he’ll consent to simply continuing the mutual masturbation.
(There was a thread a while back about whether or not other species have hymens. My point is that even if they do, the instinct for sex overrides the pain in those species, but intelligent humans would not allow the instinct to ovveride the pain.)
The author’s only “evidence” for his claim that people can survive on their own at age three was presented in the very next sentence, which was, as best I can recall, “And if you don’t believe that children can survive on their own when they’re that young, look at war-torn and third-world countries, where orphans often have to survive on their own from young ages; the youngest ones to do so are no younger than age three.”
But I always thought that maybe this was missing a crucial point, which is that, even if there were legions of three-year-old orphans roaming the war-torn poverty-stricken countries, there are still other (older) people around, many of whom would probably be doing whatever they could to help orphaned children survive, i.e. giving them scraps of food, blankets or clothing, temporary shelter, etc. Which, I would say, is not quite actually surviving “on their own.”
Younger street kids also have older street urchins to look out for them.
Arguing that the hymen would put an end to the experimentation assumes that this is entirely consensual. Sure, it’d be nice to think that sex is “naturally” consensual, but that’s not a fair assumption. The teenage boy in this scenario, if he’s capable of overpowering the girl, may well do so – not out of spite, but perhaps as a result of getting carried away. “Ow, stop it” is probably not going to be a huge deterrent unless it’s backed up with some pretty violent flailing. If the discomfort is mild enough, she might decide it’s worth putting up with (or worth trying again) to keep the guy happy, rather than risk losing the benefits of having a partner for foraging, hunting, warmth, etc.
Many girls are born without any hymen, or a very thin one, and it’s common for it to be broken accidentally. They probably won’t be doing much bicycle riding on the deserted island, but tree-climbing is a given.
Remember also that masturbation isn’t very intuitive for girls. She may not expect pleasure from it. Anyway, penetration isn’t absolutely necessary for conception; if they get as far as ‘bumping uglies,’ then sooner or later, she’s very likely to get pregnant.
That would seem to run counter to all the evidence I’ve ever seen.
Well, I’m still not sold on the idea that the people in the hypothetical situation I described would be able to learn about sex by observing animals “getting it on,” as it were. That’s really beside the point, however. My original scenario is one where the man and women do not have “anybody to tell or show them” the mechanics involved, and I that would include the local fauna.
Remember – the question is whether knowledge of how to have sex (“putting tab A into slot B”) is instinctual in humans.
I have vivid memories of my father having “the talk” with me at an early age. Such an early age, in fact, that the entire notion of sticking my penis inside a woman’s vagina completely and utterly grossed me out. Not only had the thought never occurred to me, it was rather disgusting. It was only after I hit puberty that my father’s words started taking on some semblance of meaning to me, eventually becoming a source of excitement and anticipation. Had he never told me about it, however (and assuming nobody else did, either), I honestly don’t know if I would have thought of it on my own.
Barry
Actually I forgot to mention that I once heard a doctor (physician? MD?) tell an anecdote. He said he once, when interning in a rural environment, had to help a girl give birth, while neither she nor her husband knew that she was in fact pregnant. She only thought she had a hell of a belly-ache. Turns out the parents were mentally challenged (retarded?) and didn’t know where the babies came from. When their parents found out that the girl was pregnant, they ordered them to get married. Though it wasn’t part of the anecdote, it seems likely the couple figured out how to do the deed by themselves.
To bolster this up: I read an article in a Dutch newspaper a couple of months ago about the problem with mentally challenged persons: they still want to have sex, but can’t use proper contraception and can’t very well take care of the babies either. It is possible that these days the care centres do give them a proper speech about contraception and all that, but I seriously doubt whether they used to do that earlier, and still these kids find out how to fit part A in part B.
Even though this is anecdotal and not completely conclusive evidence, I find support in this for my opinion that it is to a large extent instinctual (which of course is not to say that being told about it may help a lot).
Sorry for all the question marks, today I’m not very good with euphemisms.
There are a number of ways that people learn “how to do sex.” Most children these days learn in some sort of sex education class, or in biology, or in some other class. Others learn by reading scientific/educational books, or pornography, or some of the more explicit fiction. Others learn by watching animals or people go at it “live.” Many a virgin has learned the facts from his or her first lover. Even the most sheltered child, I think, has heard somewhere that something fits into something, and cooperative experimentation will soon show what and where. Most parents, I think, haven’t got a clue where their kids learned about sex. Given all this, and given the very good point that Sinungaling makes, I’d guess that there’s virtually no evidence that sex in humans is instinctive.
You meant to say fortunately, right? 
Anyway, in all the assembly manuals I’ve ever seen, Tab A always goes into Slot A.
Are you saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to put Tab A into Slot B?
Wait 'till I tell Mrs. Spiff about this! :eek: