Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!hub!6600pete
From: 6600pete@hub.UUCP (Pete Gontier)
Newsgroups: alt.sex
Subject: Re: Sex, Babies, and Orgasm
Message-ID: <3599@hub.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 90 17:39:53 GMT
References: <943@mindlink.UUCP>
Sender: news@hub.UUCP
Lines: 57

From article <943@mindlink.UUCP>, by a80@mindlink.UUCP (Greg Goss):
>> [You assume] that evolution is finished with us, that pregnancy
>> would _optimally_ occur in conjunction (heh heh) with every act of
>> intercourse and it _doesn't_, so there must be an explanation.

> The human female is designed to make it very difficult to tell when she's
> in heat.

...contrasts with...

> In some senses, the human female is ALWAYS in heat. This dramatically
> reduces the impregnation rate.  

If you were evolution, do you think you'd exert more effort making it
difficult to tell when the human female is in heat or do you think you
would expend effort making sure she were always in heat? See, the first
isn't necessary when you have the second. (And if you don't have the second,
then the first is pretty clearly a disadvantage.)

Who's to say the human female isn't simply more evolved than other
female mammals? Who needs estrus, anyway?

> However, month-round sex keeps the male closer to home. The
> "hidden estrus" is part of evolution's "design" to promote bonding and
> allow the female to concentrate on child raising while the male hunts.
> This is necessary because of our spectacularly long childhoods.

I can buy this, but I get a different message from it.

Keeping the male around with the lure of sex ties in with reproduction.
It's not like efficient reproduction _ends_ when the female gives birth.
Keeping the male in the local vicinity is still a function of reproduction,
in my view. There are lots of ways a newborn can die, and keeping protective
adults around is a good way to prevent that until it can do a little
fending for itself.

> If sex were only for babies, then it would be easier to make a nursing woman
> ugly (discourage sex) rather than playing hormone games to connect nursing to
> natural CONTRAception.

Do you really think so? How is ugliness done? The only thing I can think of
is acne, on a short-term basis. And I've fucked plenty of people with acne.
:-) Besides, why would it be an evolutionary advantage to be pregnant while
nursing? Sounds pretty dangerous, to me. You'd be eating for three instead
of two, at some point, and you'd be unwieldy after about 8 months and your
first child would get stolen by sabre tooth cats or what-have-you.

> Nature went the contraception route to allow the parents to fuck without
> too many side effects.

Do you think evolution expends energy altruistically? That's what it would
have to do if it wanted to make fucking fun instead of reproductive.
Obviously, it's fun. But that's to lure reproduction.
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