Not so wrong as the essayist would like us to think.
You can read Pinker’s essay that was reprinted in the discussed book here (and possibly some of the others, I haven’t checked).
The majority of the human genes that are under strong recent selection are related to immune system function (under strong and rapid selection in all animal species at all times since disease-causing organisms evolve blindingly fast) and diet (particularly milk and starch consumption). There are also a number of changes of questionable functional importance that are most likely due to recent population expansions (which should result in temporarily increased variation regardless of selection) (example paper free here).
So far, the evidence for strong recent selection (ie, since the invention of agriculture) of any behavior-related genes is weak at best, probably because recent behavioral selection pressures haven’t been long enough, strong enough, widespread enough, or consistent enough to leave an unequivocal mark on the genome (I’m discounting diet-related traits here since although they are definitely adaptations to differences in human behavior it’s not particularly relevant to what we’re talking about here). The best candidate is possibly a dopamine receptor variant that may be associated with novelty-seeking and ADHD (free here).
The basic point is that to get a meaningful selection effect you need either a strong advantage or a long time; there’s no reason to believe that the adoption of agriculture 10,000 years ago has pushed human reproductive practices in any one direction strongly enough, consistently enough, and in a big enough fraction of the world’s population to make a difference at the genetic level. 10,000 years is around 400 generations; that’s a lot under selective breeding schemes where 10% or less of your stock population gets to reproduce, but not so much in a wild population where a mutation conferring 1% or 2% reproductive advantage is considered quite strong.
The neat thing about human beings is, when they get the inclination, however urgent it happens to be at the time, the brain gets to engage … to accelerate the entertainment.
To answer the OP question, I believe this is one of the cases where the within group variation is greater than the between group variation. That is, there is more difference among the sex drives of individual men than there is between men and women.
Won’t that be the case for the vast majority of differences? For example, there is much more difference between the height of individual men than between the average height of men vs. women - but that in no way means there isn’t a meaningful height difference between the sexes.
Jesus H. Fuck on a corndog stick, I have no fucking idea.
I guess it’s just time to admit I’m still playing out the rejection messages I got from every woman or girl going back 25+ years. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if all kinds of stale males are getting female attention, but not me. It must be stamped on my forehead in invisible ink or something.
There is every reason to believe that humans are different from all animals, and it’s perfectly obvious to anyone who walks past a sign that says “No animals allowed”. As often happens, it is the ancient Greeks who said it best: humans can think, while animals cannot. A human being makes decisions about sex just as he or she makes any other decision: consider the options, predict the outcome of each option, weigh the advantages and disadvantages, and make a decision based on that.
I, a man, may experience lust at certain times. It may even be true that I experience it more often than an average woman, though we’ve seen no evidence of that claim yet. The fact remains that reason guides my decision making. Whether I have sex is not determined by whether I experience lust. It is instead determined by the rational choices that I make.
Needless to say, the same is not true for animals. Animals are not rational; they cannot use reason. Hence their decision-making process has nothing in common with the human one.
Of course it did not escape the notice of the ancient Greeks (or any other intelligent group of people) that some humans choose to abandon reason and rationality in all or part of their lives, including in decisions relating to sex. When that happens, the person falls close to the level of an animal. But that does not mean that the person becomes an animal. It is always the proper role of humans to use reason, even if some people choose not to.
This is accurate, for values of “some” that include “100%”.
Not one person in a million governs his entire life according to reason and rationality - indeed, I seriously doubt whether this is possible. To take a trivial example, how many peoples’ choice of food are exclusively made through reason and rationality?
But no one has shown any evidence that between group variation is significant for sex drive as has occurred with height. Most studies of vaginal response to stimuli have found that women are just as easily sexual aroused as men are, they are just less consciously aware of their arousal. See this article for some details
You are underselling our counterparts. Non-human animals can and do make rational decisions about sex. Everything you said, “consider the options, predict the outcome of each option, weigh the advantages and disadvantages, and make a decision based on that” has been seen in several species of non-human primates (and I haven’t studied sex in other species as much as these). We see primates sneaking out to get secret makings and engaging in behaviors that suggest they know very well that if they aren’t careful, they’ll get in trouble if they are caught. For example, a female chimp who would give shouts of delight during sex learnt to cover her mouth and keep quiet during secretive matings. Or the chimps who sex for meat which requires both parties to be cognizant of future rewards for current events.
Many non-human animals are not any more blindly led by hormones than are we.
I see no conflict. I imagine that within group variation is highly significant and that between group variation is so low as to be statistically non-significant.
The prostitution thing may have nothing to do with inherent sex drive, but with cultural practices. I would never use a prostitute, yet I have had a higher sex drive than any male I’ve dated. My lack of partnership has nothing to do with my drive, but with culture telling me that ‘nice girls don’t sleep around’ and other such factors.
To remove culture from the equation, we need to look at biological studies (very little work done, but most suggests that females are just as sexually as men) or non-human primates. From what I’ve read and observed of non-human primates, the females are as sexual as males, the only difference is, males are less picky about partners (so more likely to commit incest).
It’s hard to name any within-group variation that isn’t large across the entire population of human males; the average male-female variation will nearly always be much less. It’s misleading to imply that these two types of comparisons are related - they are independent.
So men visit prostitutes not because of anything relating to sex drive, but simply because they feel their culture expects them to?
If one wants to measure differences between two groups, they first measure within group variation then they measure between group variation and then they compare the two. That’s how they figure out nifty things like genetic relatedness between ethnic groups and so forth.
When this is done with the sexes, of course there are going to be more variation within group than between group, but you can still get statistically significant values which suggest that the between group variation is larger than would be expected just by chance.
Look at testosterone levels for example. The within group variation in both sexes is large, but the between group variation is also statistically significant and when you take the between group variation, minus the within group variation and divide it by the between group variation, you get a fairly high number. (Fst in genetics)
Compare that with IQ scores. Within males and females the within group variation is huge compared to between group variation. The between group variation is so low that we say that there are no differences between IQ scores between males and females.
You believe that sex drive falls into the same category as testosterone, I believe it falls in the same as the IQ scores.
I never said that. I said that it is more socially acceptable for a man to desire sex with anonymous partners, to have sex for pleasure, and to seek out sex for its own sake. Women are expected to be coy and more sexually reserved. Look at how men over-report sex partners and women under-report them.
Furthermore, sex drive can be independent of seeking out sexual partners. Would you argue that Roman Catholic Priests have low sex drives because they do not typically have sex partners or average levels of sexual intercourse? No, it is because cultural values prevent them from acting on their sex drives. When looking at sex drives, it is meaningless to look at number of partners and other such factors because one can have a high sex drive without acting upon it. There are very horny virgins as I am sure you know.
No. They visit prostitutes because in our society (like most advanced patriarchal agricultural societies) a woman’s chastity is considered one of her primary values. A chaste woman ensures a clear line of heredity and there is no chance of the man’s fortune going to someone else’s kid.
So women restrict their sexual activities in order to maintain their “value” in society. Having sex is just not worth the costs (as taken to the extreme by some Islamic fundamentalists that execute women for having extra-martial sex- our own society is just a quickly fading watered down version of this.) This also explains “good” women’s typical scorn for “sluts.” They are undercutting their social value.
In societies with different inheritance systems, we see different sexual values. Just like we are seeing the sexual values in our own society change dramatically. Unless you are saying modern America- where serial monogamy has become the norm- has somehow subverted our caveman urges. It hasn’t, of course. We’ve just entered a post-agricultural society where there are different power systems.
This is nonsense. Totally nonsense. I have met no women who felt an urge to visit male prostitutes or simply to have sex with random guys but did not do it because she felt “chastity was considered one of her primary values” and she might be devalued. You know, when guys visit prostitutes do you know how they prevent their value from dropping? They don’t tell their wives. That’s how.
The notion that men and women have the same urge for no commitment, no strings attached, anonymous, quickie sex is just not supported by any evidence that I have seen in my life.
But please, if you know women like that, please send them my email. I will appreciate it.
Are you kidding ME? You really think girls don’t think modify their sexual behavior because they will “get a reputation?” OMG. We spend our entire young adulthood being told that nice girls do this and don’t do that and that if we don’t follow these rules we’ll get a rep and will never attract a decent husband. Ever notice it’s never the man’s family who freaks out when a young couple starts co-habitating? You really don’t think their is a connection between the myriad of insults we have for women with multiple sex partners and the way we value female sexuality?
You really think all those girls aren’t turned on as fuck when they are kissing their boyfriends and saying “no, we really shouldn’t?” I’m about as open and comfortable with sex as it gets, and I still pass up bringing boys that I want home because I’m worried about what people will think. I still keep my flings on the down low so that people don’t think I’m easy. You have NO IDEA what women talk about around each other, do you?
Anyway, if you want to see women and their prostitutes, go down to any West African beach town. You’ll see piles of well-off middle aged European women (and the occasional adventurous youngster) and their well-muscled, young, handsome temporary African boyfriends.
Which is something I’m 100% sure is something we’ll see more of as more and more women get educated and have access to other ways to gain financial security (i.e. can get decent jobs) besides their sexuality. In all but a small part of the world and for all but a tiny blink of modern history (i.e. maybe a couple generations- maybe since my mother’s times) woman have had extremely limited ability to make an independent living. Of course they haven’t been going to prostitutes- mostly they hardly have a dollar to call their own. It’s been like one generation since women have really entered the workforce, and in countries where that has happened, women have become more sexually open. Do you really think this isn’t related?
And just remember this- for every guy having sex, there is also a woman having sex. Well, heterosexual sex at least. I don’t claim that male and female sexuality are exactly the same. But I do believe that women have the capacity to have the same sex drive and pleasure and that our current sexual mores are more of a reflection of our cultural values than anything inherent.
What you think does not fit the evidence as I see it. At all. No way.
To say all women all over the world are repressed is… well, a bit over the top.
The experiment has been done many times with hidden cameras. Take a stable couple who are in a good relationship. Have an attractive man talk to the woman and ask for sex. Nobody will know, just a quickie. How many women do you think take that offer?
Now have an attractive woman talk to the man and make the same offer. Just a quickie for fun, your girlfriend won’t find out. Do you think the number of men who take that offer is about the same as the number of women?
You may believe whatever you want to believe because that’s what people do: they disregard all evidence which does not fit their preconception. But the evidence is overwhelming.
I have found that one huge cause of problems in relationships is that women expect men to be like them and do not understand that they are not. A woman thinks that if she would only have sex with a guy she felt a strong affinity for then when her boyfriend cheated it means he has those feelings for another woman. Which is generally not the case but which young women refuse to understand. And I have seen that many 25 year old women who refused to understand that men are different later become bitter 35 year old women who believe all men are pigs. There is a lot of that.
If women really wanted casual sex women would get casual sex. There is no two ways about it. And in that case casual sex would be the cornerstone of our society instead of marriage. When people want something they get it. Drugs, booze, sex, whatever. If they want it they will pay for it and they will risk going to jail for it.
I have not seen many women paying or risking anything for casual sex. In fact, I have not seen many women who even said they wanted casual sex.
Yes but the guy is paying and the woman is getting paid. It seems men do not need that incentive. Rather they are willing to part with their money.
