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By Sam Zanahar
Version 1.1, Gloucester, 19. July 2010
By “square” I mean: will the sum of all the sex drive of all the men in the world, or in one country, at any given time, ever be equal to the sum of all the sex drive of all the women in the world, or in one country?
How we answer this question has some important implications, both on our personal value systems, as well as on whether we have or support a political agenda.
If the average sex drive of all men is much stronger than the average sex drive of all women, then a situation in which both men and women enter into sexual contact only for the purpose of satisfying sexual desire will, statistically, leave women by and large satisfied, while most men are left chronically undersatisfied.
In such a situation, which Charles Darwin probably had in mind when he wrote “The Descent of Man” in 1871 and coined the term “sexual selection”, men are positioned in strong competition against each other, for one man’s sexual satisfaction necessarily is another man’s sexual deprivation. Men compete against each other for a limited resource, sexual access to females. Darwin thus wrote of male-male competition and female choice.
A History of Evolutionary Theory Part 2: Darwin
http://www.serpentfd.org/historyevolutionchapter3.html
The term “male-male competition” can mean two things:
Either males simply fight each other, and the winners get access to the females, regardless of whom the females would prefer (this idea is closer to the Darwinian idea of male-male competition).
Or males compete against each other in order to make a better impression on females, and the females pick among the males who compete without being coerced. Most biologists are of the opinion that this second interpretation (which Darwin considered just “female choice” but not “male-male competition”) played a larger role in human evolution.
In the evolution of species, even the early evolution of humankind, sexual selection (distinct from the mechanism of natural selection, the “survival of the fittest”) may indeed have played an important role.
And when we subscribe to the idea of sexual selection, it appears to be a necessity that there is a surplus of male sexual desire, of which, indeed, a large portion must go unsatisfied.
In the Darwinian model, the men of humankind appear to be intrinsically positioned against each other (they always are competitors and therefore not inclined towards solidarity, at least not in sexual matters), while women have an intrinsic desire to keep a system intact that gives them choice without coercion (and therefore let’s them decide the rules of the game).
Even the current social reality in the Western world appears to correspond with the Darwinian model. We have a women’s movement that is strong on solidarity, while a comparative men’s movement seems to have a small chance of success.
But while sexual selection makes good sense in evolution, even human evolution, such simple biological rules no longer apply fully to humans.
For humans are beyond nature.
At least to the extent to which we have attained self-cognition.
Evolution, natural selection, and sexual selection are processes that are highly interwoven with the genetic determination of life. The fact that more sophisticated organisms have an edge in evolution produce ever more sophistication (a process for which, on earth, the existence of humans is proof).
However, evolution, by ever increasing the quantity of sophistications, reaches a point when, rather all of a sudden, there is a new quality: self-cognition.
Self-cognition allows us to realize that our interests as organisms, or rather, our interests as selves, are different from the course of evolution (procreation).
That we can decide against furthering evolution is most clearly evident in the fact that we can take preparations for a gentle death (because the interest of the self is the avoidance of suffering, even if this is contrary to procreation. For genes, this is anathema.
Sure, lower life-forms are also equipped with mechanisms to avoid suffering, as this increases an individual’s survival chance, which in turn is beneficial to the survival of a species. But instinct-driven life-forms would always chose survival (even if it means suffering) over suicide.
The degree of self-cognition that allows us to engineer our exit by overriding genetically determined survival behavior is probably only available to humans.
But if humans have enough self-cognition to override genetically determined survival behavior, then they also have the intellectual capacity to modify genetically determined concepts such as “male-male competition” which are based on a huge surplus of male sexual desire over female sexual desire.
To realize that societies can be engineered that allow a higher degree of sexual satisfaction for a large number of men, and to convince other men that such societies are possible, is an important element in politicizing those men who are otherwise just pursuing private sexual satisfaction in competition with other men. It also forms the basis of male solidarity in sexual matters… a solidarity which is currently non-existent.
There are two principal options for creating societies that are sexually more adequate for men.
One option (the more appealing one) is to liberate female sexual desires by removing social limitations to the female sex drive, especially its promiscuous manifestation.
As sexual contact in current societies carries much more risk for females than it does for males, anything that reduces potential negative implications for females should be pursued. This involves the dissociation of sexual enjoyment from child birth; freely available birth control measures; non-stigmatization of females who are pregnant outside of wedlock; a well-developed social safety net for women who are pregnant or raise children (no social safety net is necessary for men); community institutions that can take over many child care responsibilities. A further important element is a high degree of safety from violence. Violence, and the threat of violence, always enhances monogamous, anti-sexual tendencies, and it does so in females much more than in males.
Another option is less straight (but nevertheless can complement the first option). This second option takes into account that women often need an additional, material reason, apart from sexual desire, to enter a new sexual relationship (and may be genetically programmed to do so, as throughout evolution, such behavior would have increased the survival chances of offspring). It’s not that once women enter a new sexual relationship, they would not enjoy it more than the boredom of a previous sexual relationship, that has outlived its capability to excite. It’s just that for the initiation of sex, women allegedly feel that there is more appropriateness when there is such an additional, material reason to enter into it. Taking the material incentive away may well be disservice to women.
Just as it needs some time to get used to the idea that poorer societies may well be sexually better than richer societies, it requires some intellectual effort to conclude that societies are doing females (and males) a favor by maintaining a certain level of material need. But if we think about it, the concept isn’t that strange. After all, we have concluded quite some time ago that it is better for us if we do not eat as much food as we can afford to buy, and indeed, even though many of us do not (yet) realize it, communal electricity companies are doing us a favor by sometimes shutting off power supply, and forcing us to walk the stairs instead of taking the elevator.
The alternatives to engineering societies that are appropriate not just to the female pattern of sexual desire (the ideal pursued in North America and Western Europe), but also to the male pattern of sexual desire, are miserable indeed.
If we let our societies continue to develop on the current heterophobic path (favored by Christian fundamentalists and feminazis), men overall lack sexual opportunities, and thus have to resort to imagination (either by masturbation or when imagining other women during sexual intercourse with a routine partner).
Or men have to go the traditional way, which is secrecy in parallel sexual relationships and the use of standard tools of deception (adultery, promises of marriage without the intention to keep them), as well as the visit of prostitutes.
But this is a solution no longer appropriate for a world in which the common mode of production of the human environment entails thee use of ever more communication technologies, which bring with it not just better surveillance equipment but also less isolation and a superstructure that makes secrecy much more difficult to achieve.
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Sam Zanahar,