Xref: utzoo sci.psychology:3419 sci.bio:3718 alt.romance:5211 soc.men:23555 soc.women:29634 soc.singles:71997 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!bu.edu!shelby!mcnc!duke!cel From: cel@duke.cs.duke.edu (Chris Lane) Newsgroups: sci.psychology,sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men,soc.women,soc.singles Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous? Message-ID: <656953386@romeo.cs.duke.edu> Date: 26 Oct 90 15:03:07 GMT References: <1990Oct24.175532.9407@pmafire.UUCP> <13922@cs.utexas.edu> Followup-To: sci.psychology Organization: Duke University Computer Science Dept.; Durham, N.C. Lines: 57 In article mikeb@wdl31.wdl.fac.com (Michael H Bender) writes: >In a follow-up book to Sociobiology the author (Wilson?) noted that the >current research indicates that human beings have a definite polygamous >tendency, although societies tend to prohibit against polyandry (i.e., the >female version.) I would point out further that recent studies in biology >have shown that numerous animals, once thought to be polygamous, are NOT. >E.g., various species of birds that mate for life have recently been shown >to have numerous "extra-marrital" relationships. I think you have a typo. Is it that numerous monogamous animals are not or that numerous polygamous animals are not? >So unless you deny evolution and assume that are behavioral tendencies are >completely cut off from the "lower" animals, then the answer to the >original question is probably that humans have a polygamous drive and that >they also have other drives, some of which push in the direction of >monogamy. Well, now, this is a sneaky rhetorical trick ';-) It is not at all the same thing to deny evolution and to assume that human behavioral tendencies are fundamentally cut off from bird behavior. The extra complexity and size of the human brain makes it a much more plastic or programmable structure than a bird's brain. (For that matter, birds behavior is probably more varied than is realised (as I guess your typoed revisionist biology indicates.)) The content and meaning of categories that "biological drives" act on are probably cultural variables. If people have a "drive" to "mate" with the "same person", then what constitutes the same person may simply be a person who looks similar, or who talks similar, or who wears the same kind of red shoes. Or it may be the same person, but only while that person acts a certain way or while that person is a certain age. Likewise "mating" may very from masturbating while being held by that same person to PV intercourse to anal sex or heavy SM stuff; all of these activities involve the mating area of the brain, and often release "sexual tension", leaving one feeling that one's drives have been fulfilled. The mental categories within which "drives" have to operate are determined in very broad and multi-causal ways. Basically, you can't have a drive to be with the same person any firmer than your understanding of what makes a person the same. People change, and they often find that their lovers no longer wish to be with them when they have changed. Likewise, one may find that basically what distinguishes people from one another is only isomorphic with gender, and then desire to be with every person of a given gender; this "promiscuous and evil" behavior might result from a neurological drive for monogamy that augmented by a neurology that identifies similarly gendered people as the "same person" for the purposes of fucking. >Mike Bender Chris Lane -- cel@cs.duke.edu Confusion can be both pleasant and helpful.